News You Could Do Without

News You Could Do Without

by Mike Masnick


Filed Under:
bejeweled, fans, lessons, scrabulous, video games, world of warcraft

Companies:
hasbro, mattel, popcap games



Looks Like Someone Learned From The Scrabulous/Hasbro Mess

from the good-for-them dept

We've talked about how both Hasbro and Mattel seriously screwed up in dealing with Scrabulous, the online version of Scrabble written by two brothers in India and placed in Facebook where it became a huge hit. While the companies did make overtures to working with the brothers, eventually they sued to shut down the game, pissing off plenty of legitimate fans, leading to widespread boycotts of Hasbro and Mattel games, and allowing the brothers to create their own new game that has also won fantastic reviews.

It appears that not every game company is so short-sighted. Reader Doug Schneider writes in to let us know about a guy who created a virtual copy of the popular casual game Bejewled inside the virtual world World of Warcraft. Yet, rather than shut the guy down or threaten to sue him, the makers of Bejewled, Popcap Games, hired the guy to create an official version for World of Warcraft, saying that the original version lacked polish, so they figured it made sense to just hire him to clean it up and make an official version. What a concept.

10 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
 

Reader Comments (rss)

(Flattened / Threaded)

  1. Sep 29th, 2008 @ 3:09pm

    Its a hit

    by Adam_v1

    i can tell you this little addon has been spreading like wildfire through our guild and everyone loves it. excelent timekiller for flights, waiting on the raid to start and such.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  2. Sep 29th, 2008 @ 3:36pm

    or what you could do is...

    by GuildWars Fanboy

    Or you could just play a game that has map-travel and not waste time at all.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  3. Sep 29th, 2008 @ 5:41pm
    by Hoeppner

    even in guildwars I've ended up having to wait just as long on average because someone is in a group doing something else.

    and holy off topic batman.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  4. Sep 29th, 2008 @ 5:49pm

    Re: Its a hit

    by Cyn

    Adam_v1, why don't you play a game that isn't so boring you have to play another game in it?

    Or you know...go out and meet girls. They're infinitely more fun than video games, I assure you.

    And yes, I played WoW, but it was too tedious and felt slow, so I played EVE Online and eventually got tired of the bugs and poor support, then a brief stint in AoC, but all my friends were stuck on WoW. so now I'm playing 0 MMOs. The scenery is better at the gym anyway, if you know what I mean.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  5. Sep 29th, 2008 @ 6:28pm

    Re: Re: Its a hit

    by Soulless

    Uh huh, gym is well known to be gay church

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  6. Sep 29th, 2008 @ 7:27pm

    going there...

    by ehrichweiss

    I'm going there now to "reward" them for truly civil and outstanding behavior. Seriously, it's people like that who deserve to make money, not the asswipes trying to sue you or an innovative developer.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  7. Sep 29th, 2008 @ 10:44pm

    Re: Re: Its a hit

    by Agonizing Fury

    Or you know...go out and meet girls. They're infinitely more fun than video games, I assure you.

    yes but games don't leave us when they decide the grass is greener in another pasture

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  8. Sep 30th, 2008 @ 1:20am

    Re: Re: Its a hit

    by Adam_v1

    where did i say WoW was boring, i just stated that there is time within it to play some Bejewled between pulls/wipes in a raid and when waiting on other people.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  9. Sep 30th, 2008 @ 9:22am

    Re: Re: Re: Its a hit

    by Denis

    Hmmm I play an MMO (not wow) and I can tell you that the gym for me is not a gay church. I go to the gym 6 days a week and if you think that you have to be gay to go, you must be the lardass straight guy.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  10. Oct 2nd, 2008 @ 5:23am
    by Anonymous Coward

    Offical Scrabble Version- 5,000,000 users
    Wordscraper Version - 2,000,000 users

    Although wordscraper may overtake the offical EA version it doesn't look like many people are boycotting Hasbro or Matel.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

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